Adventuring is an Art Form. Here’s How We Do It.

No matter where you travel or how you get there: car, truck, plane, boat, snow machine, skiff, or even a scooter, you need to make sure you’ve got the right gear, gadgets, and go-to necessities. Plus, you need the right mode of transportation to get you there. Adventuring is an art form. Here’s how we do it.

Beautiful surroundings in Waiheke Island, New Zealand. The main method to get there is by ferry.An amazing adventure was had in Ouray, CO. We surpassed 12,000 feet multiple times—all powered with the Teal Terror!

Andy and I have been together for nearly 17 years. Yep, we’ve been married almost 13 of them. We’ve traveled all throughout the world together: from Pickwick, MN to Portland, OR; Osnabrück, Germany to Onekaka, New Zealand; Needles, CA to Newcastle, Australia—we’ve covered a lot of ground together. In flight, on road, off road, on water, on tandem bikes (highly recommended if you need practice communication!), or on snow, we have had many experiences. They’ve been fantastic, freakin’ hot or cold, flippin’ gorgeous, and fantastically adventurous. Each with it’s own vibe, intensity, and challenges. Traveling is one of the main reasons we fell in love with each other (insert audible “awww” here!).

Over those 17 years we’ve learned a lot, a metric ton. A metric shit ton to be exact. What to do, what NOT to do, how to communicate, how to stay cool under stressful situations (or at least try to), what to pack, and what to leave behind. Packing? Preparing? Simple some say, right? Well, not necessarily. Even though you may be within a small stone’s throw of civilization most times, there are critical items you should always have packed in your rig (or on/behind your rig). We haven’t been perfect packers during our years of tarmac and dirt travel, but we’ve gotten pretty dang good at it. Here’s our take on how to prepare for each type of adventure we love to do.

On Road

The views didn’t disappoint in Glacier National Park. Amazing view courtesy of the Going to the Sun Road.

Touring the tarmac with your vehicle in populous party places: Grab your clothes, toiletries, sunscreen, and a map and go. Well, it’s almost that easy. It’s important to know where you are staying (friends, hotels, an Airbnb, couch surfing) or at least know when you’ll start looking for a place to stay (we suggest looking no later than mid-day the same day). It’s equally as important to know where the best local places are to eat, be merry, and imbibe. Info via paper, phone, tablet, or in your head—it’s covered. Always good to have emergency contact names/numbers of people you could call in case of trouble. I’m not saying you’d fall down a flight of stairs while looking at the coolest artwork across the restaurant and chip your tooth … but I’m sayin’ it would be a good idea to have that info at the ready in case the unfortunate becomes the reality. We always bring our emergency kit too—it’s got just about everything to care for scrapes, bites, bruises, headaches or tummy-aches and then some. It sounds silly to bring that if you’re putt-putting on the pavement, but it’s much better to have solutions immediately available vs. crashing the nearest Walgreen’s in rough or embarrassing shape. Trust us, we’ve been there and done that. Don’t ever want to do it again. Make sure to bring necessary paperwork and passports if traveling to other countries. That’s very important. Oh! Just about forgot about technology. In addition to a GPS or map, it’s good to grab charge cords for your devices, as well as the devices themselves. Bring along walkie talkies, CB, VHF, or Ham (if you’re into that kind of thing). We always pack an extra pair of underwear—well, at least I do. Just in case. Heck, you never know what will happen or where you’ll end up during your city adventure!?!

Yes, we drove through a tree in Leggett, CA, a mammoth redwood called the Chandelier Tree.

We have one strict on-road rig, our fabulously fun-to-drive 2007 Toyota Yaris (that has no name). It has been with us for nearly 10 years, just turned over 90,000, and is a fun kick in the pants when driving in the corners. It has, like all our vehicles, a manual transmission. Lowered, K&N intake, custom exhaust, DC SPorts header, Tein and Tokico after-market suspension, and crazy orange Konig wheels wrapped in sticky Yokohama tires—we get smiled at more in this tiny tike than anything else we drive. Or laughed at when Andy decides to get it stuck on the Oregon Coast. (Hey, hey! – Andy)

Off road

The PDXJ showing it’s flex at Area BFE in Moab, UT. The front and rear bumpers, WARN winch, as well as the rock sliders proved their worth during that trip!

Riding the rugged roads in your region: Grab everything from the aforementioned paragraph, the kitchen sink, and then some. I’m just kidding. Well, kind of. For Andy and me, it depends how “rugged” of off-road you plan to traverse over. To some folks, rugged off-road driving means touring around in their new AWD on gravel roads with a mud hole or two after an afternoon’s rain. To others, it means weeks of getting your highly modified lifted and locked 4×4 rig ready before you even leave your off-road adventure. Most people fall somewhere in between. We fall into every one of these categories.

We have two “off road” capable vehicles. Each is specifically modified or used for different types of use. First, we have our beloved silver 2013 Subaru WRX hatchback named Rexie. Secondly, is our black 2001 Jeep Cherokee XJ Sport, affectionately named The PDXJ.

Rexie is a horse-power happy AWD that adores the pavement as much as it loves to eat gravel for breakfast, lunch, dinner—and snacks in between. We use this as our touring and rally-inspired rig. This quintessential on- and off-road touring car has ESM 001 wheels with grippy Continental DW Extreme tires, a Magnaflow cat-back exhaust, Rally Armor mud flaps, and plenty of get-up-and-go when you need it, and that oh-so-lovely boxer engine growl. In the winter, Rexie is our snowmobile, as we equip it with smaller wheels and aggressive snow tires

Rexie in her natural habitat: enjoying the dust and gravel during the Oregon Trail Rally.

We happily load up our necessities and head off to our excursions. Rexie is a touring car that’s happy being parked at trailheads, hotels, wineries in the middle of nowhere, or our buddy’s house. It’s not our camping vehicle. It’s our overnight stay or week-long refined roamer that’s been to many wine regions all across the West Coast and even Okanagan Valley, Canada.

Our Subaru posing for a shot during it’s latest wine outing. This was at Portteus Winery, WA.

The PDXJ, on the other hand is a very capable, very modified, very loved, “ever needing and wanting upgrades” 4×4. This Jeep’s got a lot put into it: from a rear ARB air locker, front and rear JCR Offroad bumpers and rock sliders, WARN ZEON 8-S winch, 4.56 gears and upgraded 30 spline rear axles from Nitro Gear & Axle, and a 3” lift from Skyjacker with their Black Max shocks. It also runs meaty Yokohama mud-terrain tires, a Metalcloak adjustable track bar, and a BajaRack roof rack. It is ready to tackle just about any rough terrain, slick rock, steep snow, or sand dune. We acquired The PDXJ in stock form in July of 2016, and since we’ve built it up, it’s proved its capability. A lot has gone into this XJ; it’s been on some amazing adventures.

Racin’ on the red sands of Sand Hollow, UT’s OHV area. This is an absolutely beautiful place!

The PDXJ is our overlanding, 4×4, camping, and true adventuring vehicle. Along with the above parts/pieces, it boasts a hardwired system to plug in our ARB fridge, a hitch to pull our trusty custom Dinoot J-Series trailer with a rooftop tent from CVT, as well as a deep cycle battery to lengthen our ability to live off the grid.

After traveling 13 hours, we stayed at Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest’s Chris Flat campground near Coleville, CA.

These enhancements have allowed us the ability to store necessary gear, technology, and gadgets for some serious time away from this laptop and our home. We plan our major off-road trips methodically: we’ve created a checklist for summer and winter requirements so we can check off pertinent items as we see fit to prep for an outing— without missing a beat.

After years of purging and camping, we’ve leaned out our camp gear to just this box.

In addition to gear, clothing, paperwork, and necessities mentioned already, we bring quite a bit more to our longer off-road excursions. We bring necessary food (items for the fridge and a “dry goods” bin for delights not needing a chill), sleeping bags, inflatable pillows, and lighting to illuminate our roaming home. We also pack our large, heavy metal toolbox (which we’ve used on way too many tips thus far!), our off-road WARN recovery kit (containing everything from a recovery strap, D shackles, to a snatch-block or two), to our new Magellan TRX7 that guides us to the planned routes we plugged into it before we fluttered off.

Solar-powered LED Luci lamps: inflatable and weather resistant.

Several gallons of pre-filled water, plenty of propane to run our camp stove, to the stove itself.

Our camp box holds miscellaneous items we need for dry-camping. Plenty of solar-powered lights (our favorites are the inflatable Luci Lamps—see photo at left), headlamps with extra batteries, and LED lights that plug into cigarette lighters or onto the battery. We also have a Li-ion jump pack to jump a dead vehicle or charge tech devices. Our jump pack paid for itself already with jumping a dead car in our driveway when we’ve least expected it! Best $80 spent.

Lastly, on any major excursion, we buy a tube of SweeTARTS. Yuck, you may say? For us it’s been a tradition for many years. Even though I eat most of them, it’s always a fun thing to eat when you are in BFE and you are or are not on-road, are or are not near any towns, and possibly, just maybe, don’t want to be found. Find us anywhere with any of our traveling tourers, you’d better bet we’re prepared for the adventure and have SweeTARTSin hand.

This is a stunning place on Earth: Lake Hawea just outside of Wanaka, New Zealand.Ain’t this the TRUTH! Best bumper sticker ever.